


I'll Just Wait Here Then

by AugustStories



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Heaven, M/M, Post-Episode: s15e20 Carry On
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27683444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AugustStories/pseuds/AugustStories
Summary: Dean gets visited by three angels in Heaven but as sweet as two of those visits turn out, there is only one angel he really wants to see.
Relationships: Adam Milligan & Dean Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester, Gabriel & Dean Winchester, Gabriel & Sam Winchester, Michael/Adam Milligan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 103





	I'll Just Wait Here Then

**Author's Note:**

> Please don't post negativity about the show, the cast, the writers or the finale in the comments.

The first angel who visited Dean in the afterlife was by far not the one he would have wished for, and he still didn't feel ashamed when he twirled around with a suddenly thundering heart upon hearing the sound of wings behind himself. He had just finished another visit with his parents and had been taken a break from driving on one of the many bridges crossing over streams and powerful rivers in this paradise.

"Oh."

"Wow, seriously? Oh?"

"I wasn't expecting you," Dean grouched and turned back around to look down at the water, scowling at it more or less. Fuck him for getting his hopes up. His heart was still thumping away nervously and his stomach felt all kinds of twisted up. He hated it.

"No, you weren't, weren't you?" Gabriel sing-songed because of course he was, of course he was back and of course he would turn up sooner or later to annoy him again. "You were expecting my stuck up little brother in his itty bitty trenchcoat."

"Don't get me wrong," Dean mumbled after a moment of pause, "I'm glad Jack brought you back, too. Didn't deserve how you went out but Cas deserved his end even less."

"Hm," Gabriel hummed and walked up next to him, leaning against the railing, "you know, despite Dad's manipulating fingers and yes, I know what happened. Castiel and Michael have read me in in glorious detail." So that one was back as well, Dean supposed it was only fair, Michael hadn't deserved to be killed like that either, regardless of his actions.

Maybe Adam got to find peace as well already. Whether it be up here in Heaven or down alive on Earth.

"Despite him again and again reaching in to twist the story around," Gabriel went on and Dean glanced over to him, "he didn't take away our choices, otherwise Castiel and I would have never been able to rebell against Michael and Heaven. We made our own choices, even when that meant sacrificing ourselves for the ones we care about."

"How much did Cas tell you about what happened when the Empty took him?" Dean cautiously wanted to know and eyed Gabriel's reaction up closely, there was only one person Dean wanted to talk to about with this and it wasn't him. One person who deserved to hear what he had to say before anyone else heard about it.

"Not much, he's much more entrusting with information to Michael these days, don't know why," Gabriel revealed and Dean twitched because he might have a good feeling on why that was so. Adam and Michael had been close, much closer than Dean had ever let himself be with Cas for obvious reasons. "But I'm not blind, Dean. Castiel cared about you, so it had to have something to do with that. He died for you, to make sure you would be alive at the end of it all, to keep on fighting."

"Do you know how I died?"

"It was hilarious," Gabriel laughed out and Dean now openly glared at him, punching the angel's arm for good measures.

"You're an asshole," he commented but Gabriel was still happily chuckling to himself, "it fucking hurt like a bitch. But I went out fighting, not choking on a pie or something. And it was free of any of Chuck's manipulations."

"A death grounded on your own actions and not someone elses."

They stood in silence for a while, just watching the stream run by, a fish here and there, a squirrel racing up a tree. A bird flying low over the bridge. It was so peaceful.

"Think I wanna go on," Dean decided in what felt like a good moment and Gabriel slapped his shoulder for good measure.

"Drive on, Deano, maybe you'll find what you're looking for on the road one of these days." Gabriel proposed and Dean rolled his eyes. "I'm going down to Earth. Quality time with my brothers is fun and all that, especially finally getting along with Michael is a certain good change but I grow bored too easily. Anything I can check out for you while I'm downstairs?"

Dean shook his head and they said goodbye before he walked back to Baby and opened the driver's door. Only to stop.

"Gabe?" He changed his mind halfway through getting behind the wheel again and straightened up once more, catching those ever grinning golden eyes. "Can you do me a favor?" An eyebrow ticked up in the only response to it and Dean still somehow knew it was a half a yes already. "Can you look out for Sam? Just, you know, just... look if he is happy. Look if... he... stepped away from hunting or kept going, if he found Eileen and got that family he so deserves... if he's got kids..."

"He'll be my first stop," Gabriel promised and then smiled, genuine, warm and happy, "til next time, Dean." And with one whoosh he was gone and Dean got back into Baby with a heart beating easier.

\--

The second angel who visited him was a surprise in more than one way as Dean sat outside the Roadhouse and waited for Jo to return from wherever she had wanted to go. Ellen and Bobby were inside, arguing with Ash over some thing or other, Dean wasn't truly in the mood to listen.

Wings beating had him alert and a nervous wreck immediately though.

He jumped up and once more whirled around with his heart in his throat, feeling ready to vibrate out of his skin.

Only to have all that adrenaline and something else deflate immediately upon spotting the face looking back at him.

"Michael?"

"Not really," the familiar voice spoke up and took some steps closer until he could plop down on the edge of the Roadhouse veranda. "He goes by another face here, and even you aren't important enough to get a spontaneous visit by the highest Archangel. He has his hands full with Heaven, **I** can be happy if I get more than a few minutes these days."

"Adam?!" Dean then called out in complete shock and his youngest brother grinned up at him, he wasn't looking a day older than when Dean had last seen him still in cohabitation with Michael but he was wearing different clothes now. Dark jeans and a light blue hoody. "You're an angel?" There have been admittedly weirder things in his family but it was still a surprise.

"Lived a good life, so don't get all sad eyed on me," Adam began his story with an eye roll and Dean swallowed down the stomach churning ball of guilt threatening to roll up in his chest. He sat down again and turned his chair to get a better look at Adam. "Went back to college, got a degree. Practiced in a hospital for a while, joined doctors without borders, saw the world. And then got shot by a hostage situation in the clinic I worked in. Michael came but I begged him to let me go to Heaven. I cheated death twice already, three even if you count returning from the Cage, I didn't want to make it another one."

"And how did the feathers come in then?" Dean wondered and reached for another beer from the cooler, looping it over to Adam who caught it blindly, stupid angel reflexes.

"Michael felt guilty, I think, still does sometimes. Time works differently here after all, I don't know how long it's been down on Earth," Adam recounted and took a long sip of beer, "but he asked Jack for this one favor. Castiel and him are the only ones in contact with him sometimes."

Great, even Adam was seeing Cas, why couldn't Dean for _crying out loud_.

"It drives Dad bonkers when I drop in unannounced but it makes Mary laugh so I keep doing it," Adam told with a cheery grin then and Dean chuckled, wondering slightly why his father hadn't said anything about Adam. "My Mom loves it, and part of me believes Michael loves her more than me, he drops by her place all the freaking time."

"Did you by any chance see Sam still when you were still alive?" Dean kicked himself to not hesitate to ask then and Adam nodded right away, a sappy little smile replacing the childish grin on his face and Dean's heart gave a hard thump.

"He found me after you had died, and we spent a couple of days talking about a lot of stuff, it felt good. He moved on then, down south to Texas. We staid in contact, called sometimes, texted, I always got cards on holidays. Eileen made sure of that." Dean's spine snapped straight and his heart made a had skip, breath swhooshing out of his chest.

"Eileen? So he?" He couldn't even phrase the question correctly, he was stumbling too much over his thoughts, over all the question he might finally get answers to over Sam's life. They had gotten back into contact with Eileen quite quickly but Sam and her had agreed that they needed to keep taking it slow after everything that had happened, especially now where they were free.

"They married, got kids," Adam began with a warm smile and Dean felt himself grow so much happier still. Sam had become a Dad. The Winchester name would keep on going. "Named their first after you." Dean swallowed against the emotions wanting to spill out, thinking about his brother running after a little Dean. "I died not long after Dean had graduated college and Jackie joined high school."

Sammy's son going to college, graduating college. Fulfilling what his father hadn't been able to. Living a normal life. Happy and innocent. Being just normal kids. He wondered if Dean had played football, or if his daughter had been a cheerleader maybe. Or if it had been the other way around even.

"And the hunting? Did Sam step out?"

"No," Adam told him but didn't look haunted by it, "he stepped back maybe but he never fully left it behind. I don't think that was in Eileen's or his nature." True, neither of them had ever remembered a time without hunts in their lives, it probably was impossible. "Dean slipped into it as well but only later as a teenager, Sam tried for the longest time to keep him out of it but Dean was interested, _wanted_ to join. He's a good boy, got Eileen's head on his neck so he is less likely to do something stupid. Mary though doesn't care for it, wanted to be a doctor." He looked incredibly smug about it and Dean guessed that Uncle Adam might have influenced a niece's career wishes a little then. "And with Gabriel watching over them, nothing can happen anyway. Sam's happy."

He had staid down there then, it was good to know. Gabriel had always cared about Sam, maybe now his brother had a guardian angel for his family with enough fire power to take out all monsters at once.

"Are _you_ happy, Adam?" Dean then turned the conversation back to them and Adam smiled at him, looked out over the long road and the meadows surrounding the Roadhouse.

"I am. I'm at peace, I can go anywhere I want and not a lot can hurt me now. Are you, Dean? Happy?" The question came back to bite him in the ass but when Dean thought about it, he knew that there was only one answer to give. He missed Sam, but Sam was leading a good life and one day they would see each other again. He knew by now that everyone they had lost over the years had found peace, and he could see them every single day.

Cas was around and he was free and they would reunite, Dean just knew it deep within.

"Yeah, I am."

"Alright," Adam smiled then but also got back to his feet, rolling his shoulders, "big Boss is calling, maybe I'll finally get some attention for all that whining I've been doing." Dean snorted and rolled his eyes, picturing Adam trying puppy eyes on Michael.

"Oh, Adam?" He stopped his brother from vanishing just then and needed to take a breath to force the words past his lips when Adam hummed a "Hm?"

"Next time you see Castiel, could you maybe kick his feathery ass and tell him to finally come see me? Growing a little annoyed here."

"I can do that," Adam said with a twinkle in his eyes that had Dean realize with slight embarassment that though Michael hadn't talked to Gabriel over what Castiel might have said to him, he surely wouldn't have hesitated to talk to Adam about it. "But you should maybe realize that one thing still works up here, too." Adam proposed cryptically and stepped close enough to settle a hand upon Dean's shoulder.

"What's that?"

"Praying, Dean, _praying_. See you around."

"See you around, little brother."

Adam saluted and then vanished.

\--

_Cas, I don't know what's going on. If maybe you're too busy still or if you're waiting for that one right moment but... I hope you're not staying away because you think you have to. I miss you. I want to see you, talk to you. And goddamn yes, I want to talk to you about those words, too. Please just come by. Please let me see you._

\--

And then, standing at the shore of the lake from what had once already been a part of his Heaven, it was finally time. All that waiting, all that hoping, all that praying was finally bearing fruits.

"You kept me waiting a long time."

"I know."

"Needed to find the right moment?"

"More like needed to find the right courage."

Slowly then Dean turned around and looked at Cas in what felt like the first time in ages, looked at that damn tossled black hair, that damn trenchcoat, that damn accountant tie and those blue eyes.

"Hello, Dean."

It was almost a better sound to his ears than Baby's engine running steady over endless roads.

"I missed you so much."

It came blurted out among the first breath Dean took after laying eyes on Cas.

"Dean, I..."

"No, let me talk," he asked with pleading eyes and took a step closer already. "I watched you die. Again. And for fuck's sake, it hasn't been the first time but it hit me hard. It took so long for me to pick myself up from the ground and then I stepped into a world... devoid of everything." Another step closer. Cas was swallowing. "Sam, Jack and me, the only ones left. And then Michael as well, but at first? I couldn't breathe, Cas, I couldn't think, I didn't know how to focus on fighting Chuck because part of me was still stuck in that basement. Part of me was still watching you be drowned in black."

He stopped for now with approaching because Cas' eyes filled with water again already and Dean felt unsteady, inside out.

"It wasn't until we joined up with Michael that my head snapped back into the game. And you wanna know why?" Dean asked and he meant it rhetorically but Cas still nodded, not looking away from him at all, all attention on him. "Because every second I spent in his presence I could see how torn up over losing Adam he was. Even after he went behind our back and tried to get back into Chuck's good graces, I wasn't even mad because I knew that it was all out of grief and love. Love for Adam, not for Chuck. I fought like hell, stood up again and again and just kept going, not to save the world, not to get the world back and give it a chance of real freedom. For once I fought so selfishly. I fought for Sam, for Jack. And I fought for you, so your sacrifice wouldn't have been for nothing. I wanted to keep living for you!"

He swept a hand through his hair, took a deep breath.

"And then Chuck was gone and Jack had left but people were back. And I knew that between the options I had, there was only one that you would agree with, that you would want to see. Enjoy life, live it to the fullest, find happiness in the simplest things because you would have loved all of that."

Cas smiled and Dean just kept on going, needed to get the words out.

"When I was dying on that frigging piece of metal, I felt terrible because I knew Sam was hurting and that it would probably take a lot of time until he let himself be happy again. But I also felt... relieved because I was hoping until the very last second that Jack had freed you, that I would see you again in Heaven, that I could finally have that chance to say something. To say it back."

He held out a hand, palm up, an offering.

"You think you didn't change me, too? You really think that after everything we've been through, you didn't carry a big role in who I am today? I was changed by you, Cas. Sam taught me again and again how to keep faith, but you were the one who taught me hope. I love you, too, you idiot."

Cas gave a wet laugh and then a kind of chuckling sob before he took Dean's hand and let himself be pulled closer. Let himself be pulled into a hug. They collided and held onto another with desperate strength, Dean closed his eyes and breathed Cas in, smiled when Cas buried his face against his neck.

"And seriously," Dean went on when he didn't feel like drowning it all in relieved sobs and happy tears, holding Cas only tighter when he nevertheless felt some wet drops against his neck. "You go to _Michael_ to talk about me but don't come to me yourself? What's that all about?" Cas gave a hilarious chuckle and pulled back slightly so they could look at each other, closer than ever before.

"Guess I for once needed a big brother's perspective," Cas proposed and Dean laughed, "and admittedly, Adam and him got their shit together way more than we do."

"Don't remind me, I have already been graced by my smartass baby brother with wings," Dean grumbled and his heart felt lighter and warmer than ever when Cas laughed. "What do you say, we take a drive until the sun sets? Just you and me?"

"Sounds real nice," Cas answered him and they shared a grin, hands falling down to their side and Dean's right one wrapping around Cas's left, holding on, no intent of letting him go again anytime soon.

And then, just as Cas turned to walk over to Baby to get ahead with Dean's proposition, Dean seized the moment and rather roughly pulled Cas back around and back to them being almost chest to chest and he kissed him.

\--

"Adam is an angel?"

"Are you kidding me?" Dean got out after some speechless seconds and just briefly caught Cas' eyes in the rearview mirror. "I tell you about Cas and me but all you can sum together is that our baby brother got fucking wings?" He wanted to know from Sam who laughed, happy and warm and relaxed and damn it felt so good to be back together again.

"Man," Sam began and pressed a hand upon his chest, "I mean you two no disrespect but this I hardly new to me, nor is it really surprising. I'm relived you finally got your act together but my little brother becoming a freaking angel is more on the surprise list here. How did that happen? I knew he worked miracles, inspired my own daughter to follow in his footsteps, saved a dozen people when he died in that hostage situation but an angel?"

"Helps if your boyfriend rules Heaven," Cas piped up from the backseat and Dean rolled his eyes, "can we go back to Dean and me now." And yes, thank you, knew why he was awesome, Dean decided and laughed himself when Sam sent him a scowl in response. "How come you let this go on for years and years without ever saying something?"

"You think I didn't try?" Sam bickered back and Dean got even more comfortable, turning Baby left onto the dirt road to get to his parents' cabin. "Dude, it's been a real pain. I suffered under years of longing stares and oh, oh, the jealousy."

Dean drowned out the following argument and smiled at the trees passing by.

All was good.


End file.
